Joshua 14

¹ These are the portions that the Israelites received as an inheritance in the land of Canaan, assigned to them by Eleazar the priest and by Joshua son of Nun and by the heads of the families of the tribes of Israel.

² They made the apportionment by lot, as Yahweh had ordered through Moses for the nine tribes and the half-tribe.

³ Moses had given the two-and-a-half tribes beyond the Jordan their own inheritance but had given the Levites no inheritance among them

⁴ The sons of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim. No portion in the land was given the Levites except certain towns to live in, with the pasture lands adjoining for their cattle and property.

⁵ In apportioning the land, the Israelites did as Yahweh had ordered Moses to do.

⁶ Certain sons of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, ‘You know what Yahweh said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh-barnea concerning you and me.

⁷ I was forty years old when Moses the servant of Yahweh sent me from Kadesh-barnea to reconnoitre this country, and of this I most faithfully made report to him.

⁸ But the brothers who had gone up with me discouraged the people, whereas I myself did the whole will of Yahweh my God.

⁹ That day Moses swore this oath, “Be sure of this, that the land your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children for ever, because you have done the whole will of Yahweh my God”.

¹⁰ From then till now, Yahweh has kept me alive in accordance with his promise. It is forty-five years since Yahweh made this promise to Moses (it was while Israel was journeying through the wilderness), and now I am eighty-five years old.

¹¹ Today I am still as strong as the day when Moses sent me out on that errand; for fighting, for going and coming, I am as strong now as then.

¹² It is time you gave me the highlands that Yahweh promised me then. You heard then how it was peopled by the Anakim and how its towns were great and strong. If Yahweh is with me, I shall drive them out as Yahweh said.’

¹³ Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him Hebron as an inheritance.

¹⁴ And hence Hebron down to the present day has remained the possession of Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, because he did the whole will of Yahweh the God of Israel.

¹⁵ The name of Hebron in earlier times was Kiriath-arba. Arba had been the greatest man of the Anakim. And the country had rest from war.